The recent discovery of dozens of luminous quasars at redshifts greater than six from multi-band surveys indicates the existence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of a billion solar masses when the universe was less than one billion years old. These frontier observations present a big challenge to theoretical models. The present researchers have developed a set of physically motivated multi-scale cosmological simulations for the formation of redshift six quasars, which pave the way for studying black holes and galaxies in the early universe. The current project will improve these models and use them to further two goals, first, by following the formation and evolution of the first SMBHs dynamically, performing multi-scale cosmological radiation-hydro simulations including gas dynamics and black hole growth, and second, by predicting their observable properties through post-processing multi-wavelength radiative transfer, and gravitational radiation calculations from possible mergers. The study will shed new light on three outstanding questions: 1) what were the black hole seeds? 2) did the first SMBHs co-evolve with their host galaxies? and 3) what are their observational properties?
Numerical advances that will be generally available to other scientists include the implementation of realistic accretion physics in two cosmological codes widely used throughout the community, and the addition of carbon monoxide line transfers to another widely used code. The results will be extremely useful both for current observations and for future surveys. The anticipated research results will inform and enlighten the principal investigator's teaching and outreach activities at her home institution, and are likely to be used for public education nationwide, continuing an existing involvement with the American Museum of Natural History and the Discovery Channel.
